Tag Archives: Poetry

Over the past few weeks, I have been avidly writing a book of poems around the theme of food and farming. It is now rather advanced and I should be publishing it late Spring 2020. There will be about 70-75 poems. It is a refreshing diversion from my regular activities of food futurist, which tend to revolve around technologies and consumer trends, although I have managed to find some poetry about the future of food and agriculture and those topics. Surprisingly, there is poetry with drones, sensors, data and artificial intelligence. I have been experimenting with different poetry formats such as haiku, villanelles and limericks. It is a lot of fun to do and it good to use both brain hemispheres in harmonious balance and have them fully connected rather than grow one at the expense of the other, which would be like having one huge biceps and the other one all skinny.

Some poems treat of serious matters such as hunger, suicide among farmers, food waste or environmental matters, but most are rather cheerful, like the villanelles and humorous like the haiku and the limericks. It is full of bees, birds, fertile fields, winemaking, gardening, calves, little lambs and piglets. There is also a section that I call “Destinations” that focus on some countries and their food cultures that I particularly like. I am thinking of making a French version of the book when I am finished, as the poems are in English.

I came up with poetry in an unexpected manner. A former member of my team in my time in aquaculture here in Canada, recently died suddenly at a much too young age. Of course, I was stunned as his passing away was the last thing I had expected. He was a great professional and very instrumental in the turn around that I led here, but most of all he was a gentleman with great human qualities whom I held in very high esteem. After hearing the sad news, I started to write my thoughts in the form of a poem about him. Why did I use poetry? I have no idea but it came naturally. “His” poem will be in the book. But after writing that poem, I felt the urge of keeping writing poems, this time around one of my passions, which is food and farming.

Little note March 18 2020: I am busy writing a book of poems about the theme of food and agriculture. I will post some updates about it on this blog. It should be published late spring 2020.

The more discussions about future food production and food security in which I participate, the more I discover the amazing number of dimensions this issue contains. This makes it even more fascinating to investigate and to reflect upon it.

Meeting the food demand of an increasing world population goes much further than agriculture. Some like to see it as a matter of science and technology, others as a social issue, others as an economic problem and so on. This is all true, but isolating the various pieces of the puzzle is not satisfactory. At least, it is not to me. When I listen to the many points of views, it becomes increasingly obvious to me that we will need to integrate all these dimensions: the science, the technology, the finance, the social, the environmental, the cultural, the religious, the spiritual, the philosophical and the moral. I probably even forget to mention some dimensions in this list.

As human beings, we have the privilege of the thinking and of setting the rules to ensure our prosperity. The human genius is amazing, and we have been able to develop an astonishing amount of tools to improve our lives. However, tools are only an extension of our understanding and of our perception of the world around us.

The drivers of our societies have changed in the course of time. In ancient Greece, philosophy and science played a central role in our effort to understand the world. During the Middle Ages, science became a threat to religious leaders. Galileo experienced the pressure. Science did not make much progress in these dark centuries. With the Renaissance, the arts and the curiosity to understand the world came back in fashion, supported by a number of enlightened rulers. Leonardo da Vinci could experiment and let his genial mind at work without fear. For a couple of centuries, science, arts and philosophy were considered equally important. Personally I am a great admirer of the 18th century philosophers/scientists whose curiosity helped develop many theories and research that are still useful today. During the course of the 20th century, a shift occurred. Science gradually took a dominant position, and the philosophical, the spiritual and the arts lost quite a bit of their lustre. I can understand that the feeling of “exactness” in science offers an apparent sense of security, although, the use we make of science is not always that exact. Some of our societies seem to reject anything that has not been proven scientifically. They tend to reject the point of views of those who search answers in other areas of human sciences. Pragmatism, which I strongly advocate, requires that we consider all possibilities, before choosing which ones offer the best answers to our problems. Science is not a judge for what should be allowed or not. For eons, farmers have applied successful techniques without having any scientific explanations, simply because science was not advanced enough. That does not take away that certain things worked. Similarly, we need to keep an open mind about yet scientifically unproven techniques. If we had to know how everything works before we could do anything, we would be stuck in inaction. I believe that technical sciences and human sciences have much to benefit from each other. Only by considering all aspects of our knowledge, technical as well as human, will we be able to achieve the most in future years.

Recently, I remembered a poem I had to learn in school. Although the topic has some agricultural background, the theme is more about the true values in life and the true riches. It is about fulfillment and achievement, but it also gives a nice reference to what motivates most of us. I believe it could serve as a useful tool to think about what will or should really matter for the future.

Here I give you Jean de la Fontaine’s “Le Laboureur et ses Enfants” that he published in 1668, first in French, and then translated in English.

Work hard, sweat all you can:Riches is what counts the least.A rich farmer, sensing his impending death,Called for his children, and spoke to them without witnesses.Do not sell the inheritance left by our parents, he said,As a treasure is hidden in it.I do not know where, but with a bit of courageYou will find it, you will figure it out.Go search the field when summer ends.Dig, scratch, plow, do not leave no earth unturnedAnywhere your hands can reach.After the father’s death, the sons worked the fieldEverywhere, over and over again, so that within a yearIt produced more than ever before.There was no money to be found, but the father had been wiseTo show them before his deathThat work is a treasure.

Some of my past predictions

Why “The Food Futurist”?

“The reason I chose for the futurist format has its roots in my professional experience. Through the years, I discovered that I have a strong ability to predict quickly and accurately whether certain approaches will work or not. It has allowed me to turn around business activities rapidly and successfully. This ability has helped my employers and those who consulted me to achieve great results, and this is exactly what I offer my clients with The Food Futurist!”

Christophe Pelletier

The Food Futurist’s Purpose

To address in a non-biased and pragmatic manner issues that will affect future food supply and food production. The goal is to stimulate critical thinking about effective action for a successful future of food and farming.

This is part of The Food Futurist's mission, which is about helping clients challenge today’s certainties, shape the future, and manage the transition with a targeted and practical action plan for the coming decades.

Watch Christophe Pelletier tell about The food Futurist

Some of my quotes

Click here to read some quotes from my writing and speaking!
It can give you an idea of how I think...

The Food Futurist’s Books

My two books explore the future of food and farming and how we will feed 9 billion people by 2050

Future Harvest focuses on the potential to produce more food and answers the question of whether it is possible or not to feed a growing population

To purchase Future Harvests, please click on the thumbnail below

A book with true foresight!
Published in the summer of 2010, long before the current hype, it already announced new food price hikes and the potential for unrest in the Arab world. This was all over the news in early 2011!
And Future Harvests contains many more predictions of what will come. Read about the future before everyone else!

We Will Reap What We Sow is Future Harvests II. It starts where Future Harvests ends and it focuses on the role of leadership and the responsibility of us all, consumers as well as producers, to meet future demand in a sustainable manner.
The book reviews scenarios for change and shows how our choices will shape the future, for better or for worse...
The must read for all decision makers!

The Food Futurist YouTube Channel

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My futurism

Futurism is sensible thinking about the most likely and logical evolution that will take place in the years to come.
It requires analysis, understanding of the past, vision and intuition for things to come. Therefore, it is neither having a crystal ball, nor writing science fiction.
To envision the full picture, I combine science and philosophy, analysis and intuition, technology and human nature, in all areas necessary for the analysis.
Of course, instead of predicting the future, there also is the possibility of helping shaping it...
Click here to read more about my approach of futurism